


Able and Willing

by checkthemargins



Series: away we go [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:10:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/checkthemargins/pseuds/checkthemargins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick is awful at being comforting. (timestamp!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Able and Willing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a time stamp to my pervious fic Not a Bloody Thing, and will make little to no sense without it. By request, there is Louis crying. On completely self-indulgent notes, there is so much cuddling and touching and sap in this I'm so sorry I just want them touching all the time *hands* Once again please note warnings!
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own this band, or the people in it, or anything at all having to do with it. This is just for kicks. No harm intended.

**Able and Willing**

"Have you seen Lou?" Nick asks his father.

It's nearing three o'clock in the afternoon, and Louis has to be back at school tomorrow to guide young minds through the wild world of theater arts and Nick has to be back on the radio at the crack of dawn and as much as he loves his parents, four days in a row is quite enough time spent all cooped up together. He'd like a nice quiet night in with a film and his favorite boy and he'd like to leave before his mother starts to make too much food for dinner and they're forced to stay longer. He's been searching for Louis for nearly fifteen minutes, and really, his parents' house is not that big.

"He's in the back garden," says Nick's dad, fondly, and his mother titters happily from her seat at the kitchen table where she's working on a crossword puzzle.

"What the hell is he doing in the garden?" Nick asks, nonplussed.

His mother rises gracefully from her seat and links her arm through Nick's, tugging him through the kitchen to the back door and out onto the patio. It's _hot_ , and _sunny_. Nick makes a face, and then sighs heavily when his mum points out Louis, who is dead asleep in the bright red hammock his parents have set near the fence. He looks like a little cat basking in the sunshine, sprawled on his belly with his arm hanging off the side, knuckles grazing the grass. His hair looks soft and golden in the sun and his pretty lips are parted just a little, his other arm curled under his chest.

"He's like a little fallen angel, isn't he?" says Nick's mum. Nick's parents _love_ Louis.

"He does bear a startling resemblance to Lucifer," Nick deadpans. 

His mum smacks him in the arm. Nick makes a face at Louis, because honestly, no one should be allowed to look like that, and wanders over to crouch down next to the hammock. He rests his palm gently over Louis's head, strokes his sun-warm fringe off his forehead. Louis hums quietly, but doesn't blink his eyes open or show any sign of waking. He's lovely, tight red trousers rolled up above his ankles and his favorite white Vans on his feet and a band t-shirt of Nick's that's too big for him. Nick stands up, looks at him lovingly for a long time, and then kicks down on the side of the cloth hammock until Louis's forced to roll off and onto the ground with a squawk and all sorts of sleepy, flailing limbs.

"Nicholas Grimshaw!" his mum shouts angrily, and Louis, flat on his back and still looking confused, blinks up at him.

"Hey," he says, accusatory but with a voice so sleep-thick and slow it's not got much heat. Nick grins toothily at him.

"Soz, love. Foot slipped."

" _Dick_ ," says Louis.

"You're horrible, Grimmy," says Nick's mum, walking over and looking worriedly at Louis even as Nick helps him up and he brushes himself off. "Are you all right, dear?"

Louis gives her a dazzling, sweet smile. "I'm fine. Entertaining plans to throw your son off a bridge later, is all."

"That makes both of us," says Nick's mum. Nick would normally look outraged, but it's been two years of being teamed up on, so he's a bit used to it. Instead he drops an arm across Louis's shoulders and knocks their hips together, and when Louis looks up at him expectantly Nick grins and hunches down to kiss the tip of his nose.

Even with Nick rushing it, it takes almost forty minutes to get them all packed away into the car, because Louis is too busy schmoozing his parents and his parents are too busy wishing Louis was their son instead of Nick.

"We had a lovely time!" Louis calls out the window.

"Don't wait so long between visits again!" Nick dad calls back.

"You two should come and stay with us sometime in London!"

Nick hits the button to automatically roll up Louis's window at that, because _honestly_. "I will kill you in your sleep you Satan-spawned creature of Hell," he says seriously.

Louis just sighs wistfully, waving to Nick's parents as Nick backs out of the drive. "I love them. You should be nicer to them."

"I _am_ nicer to them," Nick argues.

It's quiet for a few minutes until Nick exits onto the freeway and Louis fiddles with the radio. Once a Limousines song is playing and Nick's in the correct lane, Louis punches him, _hard_ , in the arm.

"What the—"

"I can't believe you knocked me out of the hammock!" Louis shouts. "I could have _died!_ "

"You could not have."

"And then where would you be, hm? A lonely old man with gum disease. God knows you'd never floss unless I made you."

Nick rolls his eyes, lips pulling into a smile. He reaches across the console and gear shift to rest his hand on Louis's leg, thumbing the seam of his jeans. Louis's little hand rests on top of it a couple of seconds later. "I'd never let you die," Nick promises.

Louis laughs, a little breathily, and rubs at his eyes, yawning. "Why were you so desperate to get out of there, anyway? Did something happen?"

"No. Just ready to go home."

"You know I'm probably just going to nap when we get home, right?"

"Yeah, but then I get to nap _with_ you."

As soon as it's out of his mouth he regrets it. He can _feel_ the evil smile that breaks out across Louis's face without having to see it. "Awww, babe, have you missed me?"

"Shut up."

"I've been with you all weekend! Nicholas that's adorable."

Nick sighs, flicking his turn signal on so he can go around a sporty Porsche that is going ironically and unbearably slow. "You've been with my _parents_ all weekend," Nick tells him, and squeezes Louis's leg right above the knee to make him squirm because he's so ticklish. "All you do when we're there is complain about me to each other. And then you go and fall asleep outside and leave me to be entertaining."

"That's sort of your job," Louis points out.

"I miss being _alone_ with you," Nick says.

Louis coos at him and leans awkwardly over the console to nuzzle at Nick's shoulder and kiss his jaw. Nick laughs and shoves him away. A few minutes later though, Louis twines their fingers together and squeezes Nick's hand. "I miss being alone with you, too," he says.

It's sort of hopelessly romantic, and once they're home a couple hours later they hardly get inside the door of their house before tearing each other's clothes off.

Louis reluctantly gets out of bed around seven in the evening, despite Nick's protests, and pulls on his briefs and Nick's shirt and pads into the living room. By the time Nick makes it in, wearing nothing at all, Louis's got tea and is on the floor going through the post. He's looking at one big yellow envelope curiously.

"What's that?" Nick asks.

"I dunno, something from my mum. Says to call her before I open it."

"Oo, presents!" Nick drawls, grinning. Louis just hums thoughtfully and gropes around the floor behind him for his phone. Nick pours himself a cup of tea and ruffles Louis's messy hair on his way back to their bedroom. "I'm going to take the longest shower known to man." 

The water pressure at his parents house is _awful_. It'll be nice to have a proper shower.

"I'll join you in a few," Louis tells him, wetting his lips and looking Nick up and down. Nick tugs himself lewdly and Louis grins. "Going to call my mum first, wanker."

Nick just takes a delicate sip of his tea and shashays down the hall, Louis's soft snickers following him.

He's just got his hair shampooed and rinsed out and is reaching for conditioner when the bathroom door opens, and after just a few seconds Louis's slipping into the stall with him, already wiggling his eyebrows. Nick grins and hands him the conditioner, because if nothing else he's going to get a scalp massage out of this.

"How's your mum, then?" he asks, once Louis's digging his fingers into his hair and scritching at his scalp and Nick is more liquid than solid with how good it feels. He's having to hunch down a bit so Louis can reach, so when Louis hums Nick can feel his breath sweep across his jaw.

"She's good," says Louis. He doesn't expand, which is a bit weird, but he puts pressure with his fingers on either side of the nape of Nick's neck and back up into his hair and it feels _amazing_ , so Nick doesn’t' call him on it. They do end up getting Louis washed up, as well, but not before Nick fucks him against the glass door, Louis mewling and needy and demanding all at once. When Nick comes inside him Louis clutches his legs around Nick's waist, and Nick groans roughly, Louis still so tight around him, flushed from the heat of the water and the sex. The glass is holding most of Louis's weight, so Nick slides his hands up and down Louis's slick sides, and Louis's fingers press into the meat of Nick's back. "Stay in me a bit?" he murmurs.

It shouldn't be hot or like, sweet, but it kind of is. Nick kisses Louis's neck. "Sure, love."

After their shower, Nick orders a pizza—they're completely out of food—and they curl up on the couch and start up The X-Files on Netflix. Louis's feeling particularly cuddly, which Nick is always down for, so they spoon on the couch, Louis's little body tucked into Nick's, Nick's knees pressed into the backs of Louis's.

"These graphics are horrible," Louis says, three episodes in.

"It was nineteen ninety-three," Nick shoots back.

"I was two years old," Louis tells him.

Nick pinches his arse, and Louis turns his head, smiling, kisses the underside of Nick's chin. Nick sort of sighs and buries his face in the back of Louis's neck, smiling helplessly. It's good to be home.

 

 

Nick sleeps like the dead, but while Louis apparently slipping out of bed didn't wake him, the shatter of glass does it well enough. He makes a sort of snuffly whump sound, heart racing and his eyes wide, pushing himself up onto his hands before he's truly awake at all. It takes him a few moments to get his bearings, frowning at the empty, rumpled side of the bed, before common sense catches up with him. And then he pushes the duvet off and stands up, yawning, pyjama bottoms slung low on his hips. He pushes his fingers back through his curls and pads out into the living room and through to the kitchen.

Louis cleans in the wake of nightmares. It's weird, because he's easily the messiest person Nick's ever known, but it's not like it's the worst of coping mechanisms. Nick leans in the doorway for a moment, watching Louis set the broken remains of a dinner plate in the sink. Louis's pulled on one of Nick's jumpers that falls down around his thighs and shows a lot of collarbone. He's barelegged and barefoot and he's not wearing his glasses and his hair is a mess. The rest of the dishes that've been piling up in the sink for the past two weeks are packed neatly into the open dishwasher or sparkling clean and left in the strainer to dry. He looks very pale in the fluorescent light. Nick waits until he's set all the glass down before he raps his knuckles lightly on the doorjamb to announce his presence.

Louis only jumps a little, and where normally the first thing out of his mouth would be how Nick deserved to be woken up for whatever unfathomable reason he's come up with, he says a quiet, "Sorry, love," and doesn't turn around.

Nick steps up behind him and pulls the right sleeve of the jumper up a little further. Louis's cut himself along the side of his palm, and the blood is watery from his wet hands. Nick turns the tap on and guides the wound under it, his other hand finding Louis's hip and squeezing.

This doesn't happen often. Louis warned him back at the very beginning about the nightmares, but since they've been together it's only been a handful of times that Nick's woken up to find him scrubbing down the bathroom or reorganizing the bookshelves in the study or desperately marking papers on theater terminology from his younger students. He doesn't wake up screaming or thrashing or anything, but he's always a bit fragile in the aftermath. Not very many things have the ability to break Nick's heart but Louis in pain in certainly one of them.

Once the blood's mostly cleared off—it's a small cut, really, not that deep—Nick turns the water off and reaches for a clean dish towel and wraps Louis's hand up, and then folds both their arms across Louis's chest and pulls him in closer.

"That was my very favorite plate," he says. Louis snorts and elbows him in the stomach. Nick dips his head to smile against the back of Louis's neck. "Come sit?"

"Yeah," Louis murmurs. "But maybe. Maybe in here?"

Nick can deal with that, whatever the psychology of it might be. Maybe Louis wants to say under the brighter lights or maybe the smell of dish soap is comforting. Nick lets go of Louis just long enough to sit down with his back to the island. Louis folds into him, tucked against Nick's chest between his legs, and Nick draws his knees up a bit to sort of bracket him in. Louis's trembling, still hesitant to let Nick see his face. Nick busies himself with tugging the tangles out of Louis's hair with his fingers, instead.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," Louis says finally.

"You should be." Nick grunts when Louis elbows him again. And yanks a tangle out of Louis's hair, then rubs at his scalp to soothe the sting. "Don't apologize for stupid things."

"Mm," says Louis. He's ridiculously tense, his knees pulled in and his shoulders hunched a bit. Nick leaves his hair alone and rubs his palms soothingly up Louis's bare thighs from his knees to the hem of his briefs. Louis's hands—one still wrapped in the dishtowel—are shaking when he curls them around Nick's calves. He clears his throat before he speaks again. "It's not even. I mean I'm not even dreaming about anything it's just. Just like. The feeling."

"Every time?"

"Yeah. I mean I don't usually remember my dreams, but these. Stick with me, I guess." Nick hums quietly and curls himself over Louis, getting both arms wrapped between his thighs and calves to pull him closer into his chest. Louis unfolds a little, turns his head to rub his cheek against Nick's chest. "In Harry Potter, Lupin tells Harry that being most afraid of fear is very wise."

Nick smiles against the back of Louis's head, heart in his throat. "The wisest," he agrees.

Louis traps Nick's arms against the backs of his thighs with his ankles, and Nick thumbs at the tender skin there, breathes slow and steady until Louis's matching him inhale and exhale. The dishtowel falls off Louis's hand after a few minutes. It's must touch Louis on a spiritual level or something, because he takes a long, slow breath and untangles himself, turns in Nick's arms to face him. Nick tilts his head curiously and Louis gets up onto his knees to get something off the counter. He bats Nick's hand away when Nick pokes him in the belly (irresistible), and settles back down cross-legged with the yellow package envelop he got from his mother in the post in his hand.

"Adrian died last week," he says.

Nick freezes for a second, completely taken aback. His mouth opens and closes a few times before he finds his voice. "He _died_?"

Louis's face is _blank_. It's so well done that Nick would be proud of it wasn't so wrenching. "He caught pneumonia, and he was released to hospital for a few weeks but he wasn't responding to the antibiotics. This," he reaches inside the envelope and pulls out a slightly dirty creased piece of lined paper, "is a letter he wrote to me sometime after he was convicted. His mum promised him she'd give it to me if he didn't make it. She sent it to my mum."

"What's it say?" Nick asks, despite himself. He has no right to know, he's not entitled to this. Louis never talks about his ex and everything Nick knows he learned from flipping through Louis's medical file a year ago when Louis first started teaching, when he accompanied him to the doctor for vaccines the school required. Mostly, he's learned the sort of things Adrian Meyer used to do to him on a physical level. Louis's had a broken arm, a broken collarbone and a detached retina. When he was taken to the hospital to be treated for the stab wound, he was also treated for 'multiple lesions' and 'rectal tearing' and a broken wrist. Louis'd watched Nick flip through the file, watched him look at the _pictures_ , because it was an investigation, sitting on the exam table waiting for the doctor with his chin hooked over Nick's shoulder.

Louis shrugs, a failed attempt at casual. "That he's sorry. That he's getting help. That he'll never forgive himself, and that he hopes I'm happy."

Nick bites his lip, eyebrows drawing together. "Do you think he meant it?"

Louis offers a wretched sort of smile. "Of course I do. He always meant it. It's like that – whoever said that, that definition of insanity thing."

"Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Louis nods. "Yeah." He's quiet for a while. Nick wants to hold him, but he's not getting please make me feel better vibes at all. Louis's dabbing at the cut on his hand with his fingertip. "He loved me. I mean I know that sounds stupid—"

"It doesn't."

"—but he loved me. He was just mental. Did it all wrong. He. I used to wish that he didn't, that he maybe hated me or something, or that he'd been an alcoholic or a drug addict or that there was some reason other than _me_ that…"

He trails off, mouth trembling. Nick swallows past the obstruction in his throat and lifts a hand to Louis's cheek, and when Louis looks up at him he thumbs away the few tears spilling down his face. He's seen Louis cry absolutely never. He has no idea what to do. Louis tightens his lips, sniffling.

"I know it's not my fault," he says sternly.

"I know you do," says Nick.

"I don't. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel."

Nick's shakes his head slowly. "I don't think you're _supposed_ to feel anything, sweetheart."

"I never wanted him to die."

Nick reaches for him, folds him into his chest when Louis doesn't protest. Louis's stiff for a few seconds, but then his hands slide up to claw into Nick's back and he smears his teary face on Nick's shoulder, pulling in a shuddering breath, his shoulders shaking. Nick pats his back a little awkwardly, and then gives it up as a bad job and just crushes Louis to him, both of them curled up there on the kitchen floor.

"Lou—"

"I don't know if I'm sad or not," Louis says, a little desperately. "I don't know if I'm. If I'm _glad_. I can't. Nick, I'm—"

"Hey," Nick murmurs, kisses the side of Louis's face and his temple and his hair, the skin just in front of his ear. "You don't have to know anything. You don't have to be sure about anything. There's no right or wrong here."

Louis sniffles again, loudly, and a quiet little sob spills out of him, but he pulls back and looks up at Nick, face wet and eyes red and _Christ_ , this is the most wretchedly horrible feeling in the world. "What do. What do _you_ feel about it?" Louis asks him.

Nick answers frankly. "I'm relieved."

"Why?"

Nick shrugs helplessly. "Because ever since you've told me I've had nightmares about him being released from prison and finding you again and taking you from me and _he tried to kill you_. I don't really think relief is all that irrational."

Louis looks at him for a long time, and Nick bites his lip, hoping like hell he didn't say something he wasn't supposed to, and then Louis's lips are trembling again and _oh God_ , but instead of crying—well, all right, while crying—he laughs a bit too, and Nick doesn't know if he's delirious or not.

Louis wipes his face and says, snickering, "You look so uncomfortable right now."

Nick tugs on his own hair and flails his other hand into the air. "I don't know what to do! You're crying and you're _hurting_ and like, do I pat your head? Or stroke your hair? In films there's always hair stroking. I can make tea? Or soup! I think we have soup!"

Louis's laughing again. Nick slumps back down and takes Louis with him, until he's stretched out on his back on the floor and Louis's curled into his side, still snuffling a bit into Neck's neck. The envelope and letter are near their feet. Nick kicks them away, and squeezes Louis to him tighter.

"I love you," he says.

Louis smiles against his skin. "Love you too."

"And you're not like, alone, you know that right? If you want to go to his funeral or like, to see his mum we'll go do that. Or if you want to go play paintball or break a lot of things or set stuff on fire, we can do that too. Whatever you want, whenever you want. I'll be there, and Harry and Zayn and Liam and Niall and Pixie and Aimee and Finchy and everyone you've ever met including both my bloody parents. If you want to take off right now and fly anywhere in the world we'll find a way to make it happen."

Louis laughs again, wetly, and winds his arm across Nick's hips. "Right now I just wanna sleep on the kitchen floor for the rest of the night," he says. "You in?"

Nick kisses his forehead. "Always, darling. For you, always."

 

**END**


End file.
